


A Gift by Any Other Name

by Anna__S



Category: The Mindy Project
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:22:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2469752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna__S/pseuds/Anna__S
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times Danny gave her a present.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Gift by Any Other Name

**Author's Note:**

> Each section is set, respectively, after JMCP, IBBW, TLAP, GND, and ACIMN. Look at that alphabet soup.

 

 

_I: An Indifferent Professional Colleague Cake_

Mindy handles the holiday season with aplomb. Well, perhaps aplomb is too strong a word. But she survives it, Olivia Pope-style, with a series of perfectly coordinated, monotone outfits and a little too much wine.

She resists wearing her break up pajamas outside of her apartment.  She doesn’t write back to any of Josh’s text messages, although she can’t quite bring herself to delete them.  She only puts on five pounds, but it’s Christmas-time, which means that’s basically equivalent to losing three pounds.

And when she comes in the first day after the New Year holiday, there’s a cake box sitting on her desk. She peeks inside the lid and recognizes the tiramisu from the Italian bakery down the street. Another gift from Josh, no doubt. She picks it up, readying herself to dump it in the trashcan in the hall. 

As she’s hoisting it up, she hears Danny’s voice behind her. 

“Whoa, whoa, what are you doing?”

“As a symbolic gesture of my rejection of Josh, I’m preparing to tragically throw out this delicious looking cake,” she says.

“It’s not from Josh. I left it for you.”

“Danny,” she says, grabbing his arm. “Are you telling me that instead of being a horribly misguided apology from the manwhore of Manhattan, this cake is a beautiful gesture of friendship?”

“It’s not – it’s just a cake.  No symbolism included.  They gave it to me at the bakery when I was picking up my breakfast muffin and I don’t like tiramisu.”

“You don’t like tiramisu?  Isn’t that like some horrible betrayal of your cultural heritage?”

“I think coffee should be coffee and chocolate should be chocolate. No reason to make things confusing.”

She snorts. “But then why did they give it to you?”

“Italians take care of our own, they just…” he pauses, letting out a whoosh of air. “Why are you giving me the inquisition about this? Do you want it or not?” 

“Thank you Daniel. I will gladly accept this friendship cake,” she says, placing her hand on her heart.

“Okay, it’s not a friendship cake. This is just one professional colleague giving another colleague an extraneous baked good. It’s basically my leftovers.”

“Calm down, weirdo. I will eat this friendship-free cake,” she says, grinning, as she dips her finger into the soft top layer, before popping her finger into her mouth.  He grimaces. 

“Hey Danny,” she says as he starts to turn towards the door.

“Yeah?” he asks, in his what-have-I-gotten-myself-into-now voice. 

“Thanks.” 

 "Any time," he says quietly.  

 

* * *

_II: Something Sour, Something Sweet_

Mindy picks her book up and puts it down for the third time. She sighs again, and glances over at Danny, who’s busy munching on an apple and reading, although she can’t tell if he’s reading for the sake of reading or just reading to avoid having to ask her what’s on her mind.

She knows the basics, but there are still gaps in her Danny knowledge. Especially this strange new version. This Danny who keeps the kind of maple syrup she likes in the fridge and runs his foot along her leg during a budget meeting for Christ’s sake, while talking about something called overhead in his most serious voice.  

She nudges Danny with her big toe and he glances up, his glasses sliding down his nose.  

“Gwen’s having a BBQ at her house this weekend. Can you make it Sunday?” she asks in a practiced, casual tone, as if she hasn’t already checked his schedule, as if this is no big deal, definitely not any sort of coming-out party.

“Won’t they think it’s kind of weird if I come?” he asks.  The apple makes an alarming crunch as he bites into it.

“No, I mean, there are going to be other…“ she pauses, reconsidering, ”…guys there. It’s not a girl thing.” 

“Right, but you’ve never taken me before.” 

She stares at him, feeling as if she’s missed something, and when it clicks into place, her mouth falls open.  

With a growing sense of dread, she asks, “did you want the whole be-cool thing to extend to everybody? I’m happy to lie to Morgan any time you want, but I’m not lying to my girlfriends, Danny.”  

“You told them without asking me?”

“It never occurred…” she cuts herself off. “No! Danny, that’s not a reasonable thing to demand.” 

“I just want you to tell me what you’re saying about us. I don’t think that’s so much to ask.” The intensity and wingspan of his gestures are increasing, a sure-fire sign that he’s getting worked up.

“They’re _my_ friends, Danny. You don’t get to censor what I tell them.” 

She knows, she has always known, because she’s only fool when it suits her, that this thing she was doing with Danny would have these moments. That he is impossible. That she is more impossible. 

But she is still wildly unprepared for how it sends her throat hurtling down into her stomach.  

She stands up, considering heading to the door, which is heavy and will make a satisfying slam. But it’s their first real fight since they went down the rabbit hole of whatever-this-is and leaving feels too much like walking away, like giving up her right to be here. If she goes home, there’s a chance he might not invite her back. 

Instead, she walks into the kitchen, wishing for not the first time that he had any snacks worth eating.  She ate the last of the maraschino cherries he kept for _Manhattans only Mindy c’mon_ , days ago.

She ransacks the cupboards anyway, while Danny lurks behind her, his hands jammed into his pockets.   

“What are you doing?” he demands. 

“I’m hungry,” she snaps.  “When people are rude to me, I crave sugar.” 

A second before she launches into a full-blown rant, she remembers the half-eaten pack of sour straws in the side pocket of her purse.  Mindy pulls them out, while Danny continues to glare at her, and she pointedly doesn’t look at him.

She bites into one, and it’s stale, but still chewy, and it gives her the will power to continue on without throwing sharp objects at her not-quite-boyfriend. 

“I can’t have this conversation with you while you’re eating that stuff,” Danny says.  “You look like a bird eating a worm.” 

Mindy sucks the rest of the straw in and smacks her lips at him. “Yum. Sweet and sour, just like you,” she says.

“You’re ridiculous,” he says. His voice is still tense, but the corner of his lip tugs upwards.  She reaches up and kisses him and he makes a face at the taste of her mouth.  

“You’re ridiculous,” she retorts, but the words are distorted by his lips. He kisses her a little too seriously, his fingers burrowing into her hips. There’s an edge of desperation to his grip, like he’s not quite sure what he’ll find. 

That night, she sleeps fitfully, uneasily. He rolls away from her in his sleep, like always, but she reaches out every hour or so, just to feel him there, her foot curled into his calf, her hand pressed into his back. She places one cautious kiss on his shoulder.

He's still there. He's solid. This isn't enough to break them. 

But Danny’s gone when she wakes for an early C-section, which she knows, she _knows_ was scheduled before this, but still somehow feels like a bad omen.

Then it’s one of those days and she’s on her feet all morning, so she doesn’t make it to her office until after lunch and she still hasn’t seen him at all. She sags into her chair, rubbing at her temples. 

 She opens the desk drawer to pull out her prescription pad, and nestled between her headphones and her pad is a bag of red sour straws. A post-it note is attached, and there, in Danny’s compact, precise script, is written: _For the next time._

A wide, bright smile breaks across her face. 

 

* * *

 

_III. Happy Birthday, Heart Break Kid_

 

The office is different now, quieter. Everybody is off and they don’t know why. Like their parents got a divorce, but didn’t bother to tell them.

She had never realized how much of the office’s zing was fueled by her and Danny; first, their mutual, seething dislike, and later, their friendly fire. The last time he stopped by, Brendan told them there was bad juju in the office and Morgan nodded his head in agreement.

Mindy doesn’t know if it’s the newer, un-improved office atmosphere or the catastrophe that her birthday was the year before, but nobody mentions the B-word.

It’s a profound relief.  Even another night of television, greasy take-out and two glasses of wine too many sounds like too much activity.  Managing the drift of her over-active brain has become a fulltime occupation.  

Until Peter pops his head into her office, smiling a little too happily. “So, a little birdie told me that tomorrow is your birthday.”

“I’m going to kill Morgan,” she says, as he straddles the chair. 

“Nope,” he says. “Not Morgan.  A guy by the name of Mark Zuckerberg, heard of him?”

“Well, you can forget you know. I’m skipping my birthday this year.”

“You’re not doing anything? _You?_ The girl who makes us celebrate her existence every other day of the year? Who made us throw a themed party for Arbor Day? _You_ don’t want a birthday tiara? Or a cake? You really want me to call the party patrol off?”

“I’m just not in the mood, okay, Peter? Another year, and what do I have to show for it?”

“Uh, besides the like million babies you’ve brought into the world?  A friendship with this guy,” he says, pointing at himself with both thumbs. 

She laughs.  “I guess I wouldn’t mind a cake,” she says. 

“A cake it is,” he says, but as he heads towards the door, he says quickly, “also I invited the whole office to a party in your honor tonight, see you there!” 

Mindy stands strong against this plan until lunchtime, when Peter wears her down with promises of flowing drinks and a Danny-free zone. She is strangely touched by his commitment to drinking alcohol in her honor. 

But when she arrives at the bar, Danny is sandwiched between Jeremy and Betsy, smiling at her. 

“I thought you said Danny wasn’t coming,” she mutters at Peter.  

“I told him he shouldn't,” says Peter, glaring at Danny.

Mindy groans. “Peter, that was the worst possible thing you could’ve done. The best way to get Danny to do anything is to tell him he can’t.”

“It’s a big bar, and I’ll keep two people between you at all times,” Peter promises, shoving a fluorescent red cocktail into her hand. She slides into the booth after him. 

“To Mindy!” Jeremy cheers and Danny is a few seconds late, mumbling the toast. His voice has the lazy, husky quality that it takes on when he’s drinking. 

She works through her cocktail a little too quickly. People keep buying her drinks until she’s well on her way to drunk, buzzing with restless energy. The edges of her vision are pleasantly blurred. She picks idly at the frosting of her birthday cake with her fingers while Jeremy berates her and Peter throws paper coasters at her. Danny is quiet, but she is aware of his presence, like a hot poker she can’t quite twist away from. 

“It’s a little past your bedtime, isn’t it?” she asks him. But he just smiles at her, looking pleased that she’s addressed him at all.

For most of the night, Peter is true to his promise. But at some point, after he appears with a tray of disgusting shots, he ends up in a corner whispering jokes into a girl’s ear. She’s so clearly out of his league that Mindy can’t even blame him. 

And that’s how she somehow ends up sharing a taxi home with Danny.  Sweet, oblivious Jeremy doesn’t know any better, and he shuts the door behind them, waving at her happily.   

She’s never seen anybody sit so self-consciously; he keeps arranging and re-arranging his hands in his lap, glancing at her and then away. She gives the taxi driver her address and tries to fall asleep. The chilled window is oddly soothing on her cheek.

When they reach her apartment she sort of half-slides, half-falls out, not even bothering to offer money, and starts to shut the door, only to close it on Danny’s arm.

“What are you doing?” she hisses, as he clambers out behind her and the taxi disappears down the street.    

“Mindy, you’re wasted, I’m not just dumping you at your doorstep.”  He holds up her purse and one of her shoes to prove his point, which only annoys her more.

She staggers into her building and into the elevator, staying a step ahead of him the whole time.  He follows her up all the way to her doorway.  

Danny hands her the purse, but when she reaches for it, he doesn’t let go.  He overlaps one finger over hers, then another. It occurs to her that maybe she’s not the only one drunk here. 

He strokes her thumb, lightly, but the feeling echoes all the way down her body.  He leans in; tipping her chin up with his other hand, sliding closer to her so the purse is trapped between them. His face is close enough that she can taste the beer on his breath, but he’s just making eye contact, like he’s waiting for permission.

She lunges forward, closing the distance between them.

It’s the first time she’s kissed him that he hasn’t felt completely in control. His tongue is sloppy and his fingers dig into her back a little too hard.

The guy she’s been seeing casually, on and off, has short hair, and it’s so strange to touch Danny’s head and feel soft curls, rather than spiky stubble. A flash of anger rips through her at the idea that she’s not used to him anymore; that they are so far along in this process of un-knowing each other. 

She pushes her fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, gently, and then tugs, hard.

“Stop,” he says, his breathing heavy and uneven. He pulls back, his hair sticking out in pointy tufts. She wants to run her fingers through those shapes and see what else she can do. 

“We need to stop,” he says. 

“Why?” she asks. 

“You know why.”

“You know I really don’t,” she says and she is proud of how steady, how calm her voice is.  “You never really got around to explaining it. And I definitely don’t know why we can’t keep having sex."

Even drunk, she knows this is something she’s not supposed to say. That tomorrow it will make her cringe. The main difference, as far as she can tell, of being an adult is that she knows, most of the time, what the right decision is; it doesn’t mean she always makes it. Plus, it’s her birthday, which is always a good excuse for terrible decisions. 

“That would require us ever having slept together,” he points out, managing in typical boneheaded Danny fashion to completely miss the _point_.

She screws up her face, narrowing her gaze at him. Maybe. She’s pretty drunk, and he’s kind of blurry.

“So, you’re saying you won’t have sex with me because I wouldn’t have sex with you before?”

He lets out a long, annoyed sigh - the sigh of a man who is performing some unbelievable, selfless feat rather than just being the jerk ex-almost-boyfriend who is now refusing to have sex with her on her birthday. 

“You’re drunk, Min,” he says. 

“So, if I was sober, you’d have sex with me?” 

She’s not sure why she wants this; maybe because she was so sure she was going to have it, and she had the rug pulled away from her before it was actually under her, and she just wants to know, even once, what that rug was like. As if that will undo the shock done to her system.

“If you were sober, would we be having this conversation right now?” he asks, eyebrows slanted, skepticism furrowing his forehead.

She tugs at his belt buckle and he grabs her hands.

“Jesus, Mindy,” he says, but he doesn’t move her hands away, just keeps them trapped against his stomach. She can feel the warmth rolling off him, like putting her hands up to a fire. Her fingers itch to touch him. 

“We, we would both regret this tomorrow.” But his voice is hesitant, as if he’s not so sure. His grip around her wrists tightens.

And for some reason, his change of heart sobers her up. The full weight of what she’s doing hits her, the complete humiliation of begging an ex to fuck you. 

Mindy pulls her hands away, using the console table to steady herself. 

“Never mind. That was just the booze talking. I’m good. You’re not the only guy I can call.”  

“Okay,” he says, his lip curling up in either anger or disgust or something else entirely.  

“Okay?”

“I don't know.  What do you want me to say? Is that, are you trying to hurt me is that what you want?” She looks up and sees that his eyes are dark and unreadable.   

“I honestly wouldn't know how,” she spits.

“You should go,” she continues, forcefully now.

“Yeah,” he says, raking his hand through his hair. He suddenly looks regretful and she wishes she knew what he was regretting. 

 

***

 

By the time she rolls over and turns off her trilling phone alarm, she’s ready for the day to be over.  On multiple occasions, she’s tried to convince Jeremy that in America, birthdays qualify as vacation days, but he's always just rolled his eyes.  She's not sure what the point of having British office manager is, if you can't use their lack of American know-how against them. 

Her head is throbbing. A hot stab of pain runs through her, as if the drinks have mixed with her shame and curdled in her stomach.

Mindy makes it to the office only an hour late and decides to chalk that up as a victory. Luckily, everybody else looks like they’re fighting their own battle with nausea.  She sits down at her desk, and hunches over.  She wonders if anybody would notice if she closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

Five minutes later, she nearly falls out of her chair when Danny strolls in, his coat still on, his messenger bag strapped across his shoulder.

“Happy birthday, Min,” he says, offering a careful smile, as he slides a paper bag across her desk.  She notes the familiar bakery name but she would have been able to identify it from just the shape of the grease stain on the bag. 

Mindy swallows the words that have been stuck in her throat since she opened her eyes: _all I wanted for my birthday was to wake up and have you there._ Instead, she nods at him, managing a half-smile, and he’s gone as fast as he appeared.

“Ahh, bear claw, my old friend, it’s just you and me now,” she says out loud, aiming for chipper and mostly falling short. 

She bites into the pastry, and the crumbs dissolve, sticky sweet and still warm, on her tongue. 

* * *

 

_IV. This Present has a Target on It_

 

The thing is, she hasn’t been mad. Or she’s been so mad that at some point she circled back around to sad.  Because if she thought about how he ran in and out of her life like a horny, runaway train, she might kill him. And someday she would maybe like to be friends with him again.

But someday has arrived, and yet, somehow here he was, repeating the past, back on that same damn train. 

She doesn’t know why, and for once, she’s following Gwen’s advice and choosing not to care.  Their entire relationship has been like a foreign film, minus the subtitles. And she’s done with it. She’s ready to speak English again.  

With a surge of anger, she shoves the pink weights back into the Target bag, along with a set of patterned plates and scented hand soap. Everything must go, except for the chips, which she already ate, and maybe the Beyonce toothbrush, which she can’t quite bring herself to get rid of. 

There’s a quiet knock at the door.

“It’s your apartment, you can come in,” she shouts, mumbling to herself that he never bothered to ask permission before.

“Hey,” he says, his forehead creasing as he scans the room, taking in the packed suitcase and the bulging bags.

“Are you going somewhere?” he asks, slow on the uptake, per usual. 

“I knew this was a bad idea,” she says. “I shouldn’t have let you talk me into it.  I mean, I appreciate the offer, but this was never going to work.”  

“I think it’s been working fine,” he says, his fingers tapping along the counter. 

“Danny, you _kissed_ me last night,” she says and he looks so surprised that she momentarily doubts herself, because she’s had a few fantasies along those lines, but no, that definitely happened. Maybe he’s just surprised that she’s not letting him off the hook.

To make her meaning crystal-clear, she picks the bags up and hands them directly to him.

Mindy’s not sure why this feels so significant; these knick-knacks and lotions and kitchen implements she doesn’t even know the right word for.  She tries to imagine what he was picturing when he bought them, what scenario he was imagining, what meaning he thought these objects had.  She would like to know what exactly she’s rejecting. 

But maybe that communication failure is exactly what she’s rejecting.

“Those were gifts,” he mumbles. 

“Gifts don’t come with strings,” she says, although in her experience that has almost never been true. 

“Min, last night,” he says, visibly struggling. “That wasn’t, that wasn’t what you thought it was.”

“Okay,” she says, waving her hand in his direction. “It was exactly what I thought it was. And I can’t be your back-up girl forever. I’m not going to be the booty call you keep in moderately-priced hand soap. I deserve better. Our friendship deserves better.”  

Even spitting out the words hurts, because even back when she thought he was nothing but a jerk, she thought he was a different kind of jerk. She never thought that he saw women as being disposable. That he saw her as disposable.

“You’re not listening to me,” he says, almost frantic now, gesticulating in jerky motions. 

“Danny, for the love of god, just take the bag,” she repeats.

After a moment of hesitation, he takes it. She inhales, steeling herself, and heads for the door. 

 

* * *

 

_V. A Swan in Wolf’s Clothing_

There are some rules.  Anything that can be found in the office supply closet doesn’t qualify. Gum doesn’t count and a gift of sugar free gum is legitimate grounds for a fight.  Sex only counts if it’s completely one-sided.

On long days, where he barely has time to remember to feed himself, flowers and or sweets are a perfectly acceptable substitute.   

Today had been shaping up to be one of those days. They were both drained from the late night drive back from Staten, and the hospital schedule had gone to shit by noon.  By the time they finally get home, he’s retreated into his crankiest self and she would commit murder for sugar, although she supposes that’s no different from most days.

“Where’s my ice cream?” she says.

Danny is slumped against the back of the couch, massaging his forehead with his fingers.  He leans forward, swiveling towards her, his hand moving to her leg.   

She’s sort of fond of his crabby face; the way his mouth purses out and his eyebrows seem to grow even thicker and darker. It’s the first version of him she remembers.  And one day she’ll probably grow tired of looking at him, but today is not that day.

“You know, I mostly don’t mind, but why do you insist on these presents?” he asks, his fingers kneading into her calf. The gentle massage distracts her from his question, which is probably his goal.  

“Because I’m a human woman, Danny, duh,” she says, closing her eyes as his thumb presses into a tight knot, right where it always hurts after a long surgery. 

“But even if I forget, you know I still love you, right?” he asks.  

“You don’t have to make this into a sesame street lesson. You can just say that you forgot.” 

With the first hint of a grin, Danny reaches over the armrest and pulls something out of his messenger bag.

“Is that – is that a video tape? Are you finally showing me your sex tape? Babe, this is the best gift ever.”

“Okay, I’ve told you a million times, I don’t have a sex tape!” 

 “Oh god, do you want me to watch some old, boring movie that doesn’t exist on DVD?”

“It’s uh…” he pauses, his ears turning red, and for one perfect second she’s convinced it’s a sex tape after all. “It’s my sixth grade ballet recital. I found it in my desk while we were home.” 

She sits up, yanking her foot away from him. “Are you serious? But, wait, Danny, it’s a VHS tape. We’re going to have borrow the DeLorean and travel back in time to find somebody with a VHS player…unless, oh my god, you have a VHS player, don’t you. Of course you do.” 

“Well, there was no point in throwing it out,” he says, his habitual defensiveness giving way to a shrug.  

“Before we watch, there are some basic ground rules,” he continues, the tape still raised high above his head.

“First rule, no videotaping, or recording of any kind. Rule two, if you tell anybody about this at the office, I will deny it until the day I die.  Rule three, you can’t make any comments about my costume or my tights. No jokes, Mindy, you hear me?”

She nods, although she doesn’t really think that he believes she’ll actually follow any of these rules. There’s a good chance he won’t notice if she tapes the entire thing.  She’s not one hundred percent sure he even knows phones come with video capabilities.

“Well, what are you waiting for, twinkle toes,” she says, nudging him.

He slides the tape into the VHS player, which she notes is tucked away behind the television, because even Danny has the sense to be ashamed of that dinosaur. 

The screen is zoomed into the dark recesses of the stage, but she can make out Annette’s distinctive voice telling the moms in front of her _to sit down and stay quiet for pete’s sake, this isn’t happy hour._

“I still can’t believe you’re showing this to me of your own free will,” she says, as the lights begin to dim.

“I thought it would make you happy,” he says in a half-embarrassed tone. 

“Danny,” she says, in the voice she uses when he’s acting like some adorable stranger who has wandered in off the street and she’s not quite sure if she’s supposed to take him in. 

“Don’t turn this into some big deal,” he warns her.

“I love you,” she says, smiling and his head jerks towards her. 

“Have I never said that before?” she says, laughing harder, because his face has taken on the oddest expression. His mouth opens and closes and opens again.  

She sort of assumed that he just knew. How many times had he told her that she fell in love too hard, too fast, without discrimination. She’d loved Josh, even Tom, for Christ’s sake.  She'd once been convinced she’d fallen for the sexy barista in the coffee shop across the street and she didn’t even know his last name.  It was her curse and her gift, and Danny was never going to be the one avoided it.

“No, I think I would’ve remembered that,” he says, kissing her, his surprise giving way to a smirk. 

“I mean, I guessed,” he adds.

He has her pinned against the couch, his knee scooting between her thighs as he deepens the kiss.  He tastes like whiskey and she doesn’t even totally hate it. But the familiar opening notes of the swan lake symphony register even through the haze of his skin.

“Okay, enough,” she says, pushing him back to his side. “You’re not getting out of this so easily.” 

She taps the remote and slips her hand into his. “Rewind it. I want to watch from the very beginning.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in response to a prompt from Gloria Gilbert for an angsty Danny/Mindy story that included the line, "all she wanted was to see his face when she woke up." She may wonder how that became this. Your guess is as good as mine.


End file.
